success
story by CoIs HArMAN
LEFT: The entrance to
Abel Naphtaly’s farm.
FAR LEFT: Abel Naphtaly
with some of his Santa
Gertrudis cattle.
mover-and-shaker
In 1992 he left Agrico and started
his own business, a security company
called Naphtronics based in South Af-
rica’s North West Province. He started
with one employee, fitting car alarms
and radios and home alarms and busi-
ness alarms. Three months later he had
to hire two more staff members. The
Abel Naphtaly shows
dreams do come true business grew fast and soon a security
When a go-getter entrepreneur bought guards division, called “Flash Security”,
an ox to celebrate his business achieve- was launched.
ments, he fell head over heels in love In 2000, Naphtaly entered the Busi-
ness Directives competition ran by a
with the beautiful heifers he saw on Spanish enterprise in Madrid. He won
the farm and decided he would breed a Gold Star award for quality manage-
ment, which further boosted his grow-
cattle himself. Four years later, he has ing business.
another success story to tell.
A
Three years later, he went on to
scoop gold and platinum awards for
bel Naphtaly is a dream- as a radio technicians. In 1983 he moved quality management at a competition
er, but a dreamer with to the Agrico Development Coopera- in New York which saw participation
a difference – he has tion, working as an audio engineer and from 64 countries.
the ability to make his helping the training department with
dreams become reality. producing audiovisual materials for Becoming a farmer
And he is so determined to achieve his agriculture. While making preparations to cele-
goals that he ends up living his dreams.
Once he has considered all the factors
that could influence the outcome, he
moves into action with everything at
his disposal to realise the dream that
makes life meaningful to him.
Born on 17 December 1955,
Naphtaly hails from Middelputs in
Botswana’s Kalahari district. After ma-
triculating in 1974, he started in-service
training at the department of post and
Abel Naphtaly ’s Santa
telecommunications in that country. In Gertrudis cattle
1980 he joined Radio Bophuthatswana graze on pastures of blue
buffalo grass.
6 December 2007 Farming sa
brate these achievements, Naphtaly vis- taly phoned the farmer to enquire rent and a while later they gave him
ited several farmers in the Rooigrond about the price of the cattle. De Kock the good news that they had found a
and Buhrmannsdrif areas. In this way laughed, but promised that he would suitable farm for him. Naphtaly then
he met Thys de Kock on his farm near weigh the animals and offer him a price arranged for a bank overdraft to buy
Molopo Eye and bought an ox for the per kilogram. more cattle.
festivities from him. While the ox was Naphtaly bought 19 heifers with sav-
being slaughtered Naphtaly explored ings from his pension and asked Chief Farming with a
the farm and spotted some beautiful Shole of the Ramatlabama area if he speciFic breed
heifers in De Kock’s kraal. So began could keep his cattle there. The chief He decided that he wanted to farm
his dream to farm with cattle. agreed and he applied for a piece of land with quality cattle of a specific breed.
When he initially approached De where he eventually built his kraals. On his way back from visting his se-
Kock about his idea and told him he curity business at Kuruman one day, he
wanted to buy the cattle, the farmer Falling victim tO saw a signpost with a picture of a Santa
said he didn’t think Naphtaly could af- stOck theFt Gertrudis bull on it. He took the turnoff
ford them. But Naphtaly told De Kock: During his first week of farming and met Tina and Willie de Jager, who
“Maybe I haven’t got the money to buy Naphtaly realised that he needed a later became his friends. Their love for
them now, but the love I have for those bull. He went to Derby and bought the breed inspired him to farm with
cattle will enable me to get the resourc- a Simbra-Limousine cross bull and Santa Gertrudis. “It was a good choice
es to buy them.” three more heifers. In March 2003 all that makes me very proud when I walk
He paid several more visits to the his heifers disappeared at Ramatla- among my cattle,” says Naphtaly.
farm to admire the cattle and prayed bama. They were already pregnant and He bought two stud bulls and 30 stud
for help to fulfil his dream of owning Naphtaly was devasted, but he never- heifers from the De Jagers.They immu-
the beautiful animals. theless stayed determined to pursue his nised the cattle against heartwater and
When Naphtaly told his wife and dream. “I could not allow thieves to three weeks later delivered them to him
children about his interest in the cattle, dictate my future,” he says. at Klippan in the Jagersfontein area.
they asked him, “Where are you going In May 2003 he started buying calves Naphtaly then realised that if he put
to keep the cattle, you have no land.” and weaners. He was no longer con- his money in the bank, he would only
He replied that God would provide. cerned about the breed and merely receive 8% interest, while he could earn
On a Sunday after church and lunch at wanted cattle to plug the hole in his 10 times more investing in cattle. He
a restaurant, he took his family to see heart. Nine months later he had ac- informed his family about his decision.
De Kock’s cattle for themselves. They quired 45 heifers, which he kept on It would mean spending more time on
agreed that the heifers were very beau- Judge President Mogwe’s farm. He the farm he was leasing in order to pro-
tiful. They prayed and went home. then contacted the department of land tect his investment there.
The following Wednesday Naph- affairs to enquire about a farm to 9
Farming sa December 2007 7
7
“If I could not afford to be on the farm, the environment
would take my investment away,” said Naphtaly. He became
increasingly committed and dedicated to farming.
A fArm of his own
Naphtaly became involved in physical work on the farm and
discovered that it was good for his health and added to his
enjoyment of the business.
Little did he know how close he was to his dream of own-
ing a farm. The farm next to the one he was renting came
on the market. Naphtaly responded to the advertisement and
discussed his aspirations with Gideon Morule, the president
of North West African Farmer’s Union, and Ketlile Mabi-
letsa, deputy director of district services in the department
of agriculture, conservation and environment of North West
Province. They referred him to an associate at Agri Start.
The necessary arrangements were made and Naphtaly suc-
ceeded in getting a loan from a commercial bank to buy an
excellent piece of farmland of nearly 1 000 ha that was even
partly game-fenced.
He clearly remembers how the farm nearly slipped through
his fingers. Time was running out and despite having a loan,
the land affairs grant could not be paid over due to a claim.
Boxing smArt
It was Wednesday and the offer would lapse on Friday. He
had already paid the seller R100 000 and this could be lost
if he could not raise the remaining R700 000 by Friday.
Morule and Mabiletsa concluded that if Naphtaly kept a
nucleus herd of stud cattle and sold the rest, he could raise
the amount needed. The money was paid to the lawyer at
2 pm on Friday. “What a relief, but what a terrible feeling of
pain knowing that more than 150 of my cattle were gone,”
Naphtaly remembers. But he worked even harder and today
ture becoming more technical you need youngsters (male he will tell you painful decisions are sometimes necessary to
and female) with technological savvy to keep up with the secure one’s goals. With only a few years of farming under
changes and to come up with ideas. In this regard I’m happy his belt, Naphtaly was nominated as one of the three finalists
to say we already have a programme focused on bringing the in the 2007 Developing Cattle Farmer of the Year awards.
youth into agriculture. For continuity I would hope that after Cois Harman is a director of Agri Start in Zeerust. 
me a much younger person will take over the reins.
5. Do you foresee Nerpo merging with the (predominately
white, commercial) Red Meat Producers Organisation?
I’m afraid not in this decade, as there are still many chal-
lenges facing our members. Give us some time, our people
and their priorities might get lost in one super organisation.
At the RPO the stakeholders talk about technical stuff and
export, while we are still trying to explain the basics (among
others commercial livestock rearing) to our people. We also
still need to seriously look out for markets for our people, so
that we’re not left with a problem when they start producing.
The availability of land is going to be a challenge to some
of our farmers, but for that we’ll need to fight hard with the
Abel Naphtaly shows off his stud bull to banker Johan de Klerk.
relevant authorities. 
Farming sa December 2007 9